Algeria, Turkmenistan, and Uruguay last week deposited their instruments of ratification for the Paris Agreement, bringing total membership in the climate change accord to 84, according to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The agreement’s entry into force was triggered earlier this month when it hit the 55/55 threshold — 55 member nations representing at least 55 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. The 84 current members represent about 61 percent of worldwide emissions.
Entry into force will formally occur on Nov. 4, just days before the 22nd session of the Conferences of Parties to the UNFCCC, scheduled for Nov. 7-18 in Marrakesh, Morocco. COP22 will also, somewhat unexpectedly to participants who had not snticipated entry into force quite so soon, host the first meeting of the parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA1).
Each member nation to the Paris Agreement has made commitments toward keeping global temperature rise “well below” 2 degrees Celsius — and closer to 1.5 degrees if possible. The United States, for example, has pledged by 2025 to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28 percent from 2005.
On Friday, the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement itself received the Asturias Foundation’s Princess of Asturias Award for International Cooperation “for more than two decades of work aimed at reducing the role of human activity on global warming,” according to a foundation press release.
In accepting the award, UNFCCC Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa called the agreement “our gift of hope.”
